Friday, July 4, 2008

In 1988 some 20 years ago John Schumann released "Looby Loo"his only album I haven't got. Its a children's record with suchfine songs as "She"ll be coming round the mountain" and"This old man." The next few years are detailed on his website as follows

In 1998 until 2001, John’s passion for social justice and the environment led him into mainstream politics. In the 1998 federal election he took the Minister for ForeignAffairs down to the wire in the seat of Mayo, reducingMr Downer’s blue-ribbon margin from 16% to 1.7%.John Schumann campaigned for three weeks only.The count took 12 days.

In 1993 John released this album "True Believers," a solid albumwith a hint of the past few years in the lyrics. His green credshowing on the opening track "If I close my eyes"

I can see the river redgum rising greenagainst the dawn I can hear the sacred silence of Wilpenain the morning All I have to do is close my eyes

If I close my eyesI can see the sunlight tumbling down betweenthe native pines Broken by the breeze, splashing red and orange light I can see the wedge-tailed eagle climbing stairways in the sky; If I close my eyes

But its the track "Eyes on fire" where we see the old Schumannsurface, the song rollicks along like a steam train dragging you intothe world of people losing their jobs to cheap labor overseas

and a country selling our manufacturing base for a cheap buck.

Eyes on fire - John Schumann

Out here on the western line, where the carriagesbump and sway And the aerials tag the skyline and the raggedchildren play I lined up every morning, we were living frompay to pay

There are some things, mister, that I just don’tunderstandHow the job I’ve had for 20 years has just movedto JapanAnd I’m standing in a dole queue while my country’schanging hands Eyes on fire

Eyes on fire – and in the firelightNon-one’s taking anything more from here,without a fight Eyes on fire

My shoes are made in Poland, I’ve got a pairfrom SingaporeThese gloves come in from Shanghai,we don’t make them anymoreAnd there’s all these Kiwi shearers hereI’ve never seen before Eyes on fire

My radio comes from Taiwan, my car’s made inKorea My son was making car parts, but they closedthe plant last year; And it’s not coming back, the company madethat very clear Eyes on fire

Eyes on fire – and in the firelightNon-one’s taking anything more from here,without a fight Eyes on fire

So hold on, darling, it’s a real rough rideWe’ll make it out of here, to the other side And while the sun still shines and the birdsstill sing, They can’t take away important things from us, Like faith and hope and dignity And eyes on fire

You can hear the changes coming like therumbling of a storm And under southern skies I see the breakingof the dawn We didn’t start the fighting, but we won’t runfrom the war – Eyes on fire

Eyes on fire – and in the firelightEnough’s enough – no more groundNothing more – without a fight Eyes on fire

Also John covers the song made famous by Barnsy"Working class man" turning it into a folk anthem, andhe also puts the Banjo Patterson poem"Clancy of the overflow" to music.Plympton High is also worth mentioning, set tothe music of "I've been to Bali too" its a very funnylook at John's high school years

Track List01 If I Close my Eyes02 Leigh Creek Road03 Fallen Angel04 Eyes on Fire05 Working Class Man06 Roll on the Day07 Clancy of the Overflow08 If the War goes on09 Hyde Park Calling10 Plympton High11 Eyes on Fire (acoustic)12 If I close my eyes (reprise)

A wonderful album by one of the greatest songwritersthis country ever produced.

8
comments:

Anonymous
said...

Hi BobGareth (in the UK) here.I haven't dropped by for a while, pleased to see another band feature that 1. I have heard of and 2. have some CDs by - MY FRIEND THE CHOCOLATE CAKE - YES !!!Thanks especially for the solo John Schumann and Hugh McDonald posts - awesome !Is there anymore REDGUM related to come ?Thanks again, all the best, Gareth

Hi Gareth, good to hear from your from up the top of the earth. I do have a couple of redgum live boots which I'll post and another Hugh album, I may wait a bit and post some other stuff for a while before I bore to death the people who just don't get into redgumciao bob

Bob,Both links to True Believers go round in circles. Clicking to download takes you back to the same page, part 1 (i.e. 'Your link will appear shortly', with the countdown).No problem with the other Redgum stuff though, and I haven't tried the Lawson downloads.Yes, I've used a Redgum search.

Zshare lost all my links sometime back in October I reup on request.So i had requests for redgum but not johns stuff, just tell me what your after and it will go on the list.Are you after all the john stuff?ciao bob

hi bob wayne here been stuck in asia for some years now just stumbled upon this great site i had johns stuff on tape years ago before the electronic age and as usual tapes get eaten up at some stage in life i was resigned to the fact that both my tapes were lost until now but i have attempted all the links seems because of inactivity they have gone dead any chance of getting another upload going i would love to buy the originals but until now have not been able to find them rgds robbo

That Striped Sunlight Sound.

Coming to you from Brisbanethe home of the striped sunlightsound, this is a my little placein cyberspace to share themusic of Australiawhich may have passed you by.Mostly rare and out of printalbums from artists that nevermade it into the mainstreamand my recollections concerningthem. If you like somethingplease leave a message in thecomments, if you don't,maybe you'd rather not seeyour music here, or maybe myrecollections are wrong,please leave a message too.If you find any links no longer workplease let me know and I'll fix itI'm on myspace you can find me at myspace.com/stripedsunlightsoundand if you preferfacebook.com/people/Bob